her diary's black pages
by stormcages
Summary: Random snippets of fic for 11/River.
1. nightmares

When the Doctor woke up crying, River had her arms wrapped tightly around him and she was whispering. His eyes fluttered open. Her eyes stayed shut. River's hand stroked his chest while the other played with his hair and her forehead rested lightly against the side of his head. She sang softly under her breath, her mouth pressed close to his ear. Every few words, her tongue would hit the seashell curve of his ear and her lips would leave unintentional kisses.

River, who hadn't seen John wake, smiled when she saw that his shaking had stopped. She smoothed his hair once more.

"That's right, Nightmares. No one can have him but me."


	2. razor blade

River had a razor blade for a smile. He wanted to bleed.


	3. numbers are mere chapters

"How many for you?"

"386. You?"

"134."

"… Do you ever feel like we're running out of time?"

"Never."

River stopped and looked at him. The winds blew stray tendrils of her hair darting forward. The Doctor leaned over and tried to tuck them behind her hair. He failed: his finger shook too much.

"See River, time isn't our problem. It's figuring out how to use it, waste it, spend it."

A silence.

"What did we do for 200? I've been wondering."

"Oh, spoilers, sweetie."

"Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way."


	4. lover please do not fall to your knees

Poking his head of the TARDIS, the Doctor waited a moment for River to move from her prison bed to his own. She didn't. Frowning, the Doctor slipped out of the doors, shutting them quietly behind him, and cautiously making his way over to the bars.

River lay gently on her bed. She was so gorgeous with the blankets tangled around her in odd ways.

She was also naked.

Flushing, the Doctor realized that little side-note when River turned slightly in her sleep, revealing a marvelous hickey on her shoulder. Another one on her chest peeked just the top of the blanket. Stray bite marks scattered across her skin like stars.

The Doctor finally ripped his stare away from her and turned silently.

"Hello, sweetie."

The Doctor spun around to find his wife groggy and naked and unashamed as she sat up on her bed, crossing her legs. He grinned.

"Hello, wife. Feeling up for an adventure?"

"Always."


	5. a tune he used to know

The Doctor caught River singing in the shower.

She hadn't made a big deal about it, but, when the Doctor stuck his head in and watched as the water ran down her naked body and listened as she sang the old Gallifreyan lullaby, she had been startled and her ears had turned a bright pink.

He smiled.

She grinned in return.


	6. all the king's horses

A/N: This one features spoilers through series six. Also my personal head!canon for The Impossible Astronaut.

She'd fallen down the hole, ladder be damned. River's knees had gone weak. She slumped down onto the floor, feeling the familiar tang of metal and blood pool in the back of her throat. She clutched at the ground. The colors danced across her eyes and the reflective surface of metal and dirt stuck to her mind's eye. The sight of the astronaut suit and the damage she had given it in her desperate attempts to escape had been enough to make her hearts flutter and she'd just prayed that the batteries of her bio-dampeners were still working because if not…. Best not think about that.

River's morning sickness had been under control for the past few weeks, but she supposed that the emotionally draining situations had brought it back at full force.

She vomited.

A million and a half broken memories floated up to the surface and popped like bubbles. Half-eaten meals and floorboards that creaked and red writing on the walls and pictures she never drew on her desk. Running away once, twice, thrice, never at all. Regenerating after starving to death on the streets of New York. Regenerating again after having her throat cut by a pickpocket in London. Astronauts and her mother shooting at her to protect River's husband who she was a little more than half in love with.

As she leaned back, thankful for the minute alone, she shut her eyes. She counted to ten.

Then her father descended down the ladder, muttering to himself and River had to scramble to regain some composure.

But all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put River together again.


	7. when she was young

The Doctor never visited without his blue bowtie. It took centuries for River to realize why.


	8. of games she played he never did

They paint a picture, she and he. The stars themselves forced alignment and readjustment at the very mention of their names. Whole galaxies trembled at the sound of syllables that punched holes in the ozone and ripped Life from the manacles of Death: River and the Doctor. They met at parties and bewitched the waitstaff and promised each other kisses under mistletoe only to separate and find distance across black time and blue space. They wore asteroids on their belts as they waltzed across heaven, hell, and home. They played the world like a puzzle and promised to set her right again with a kiss, with a shake of the hands, with a meeting, with a parting of ways.

Sometimes, she'd smile into her drink as she watched him run past. He'd be carting some companion or three and he'd run right past, his eyes never registering her. If she asked him later, he'd remember nothing of a woman watching, only the thrill of a chase or a hunt. She agreed with a grin and a flash of teeth.

Sometimes, she'd make a game of it. Based on stories, she'd show up, dressed up all for the part. He never noticed her if she wore a wig and kept her eyes to herself (although that was easier said than done). Sometimes, he'd play, too, and he'd stop to give her a wink and a smile and a polite little wave. He didn't play as much when he was younger. He'd still squawk about how she shouldn't have done that, his arms flailing and his bowtie slightly askew and his words all lies but he wouldn't know it yet. And then when he proposed the game to her, his eyes flashing and his smile bright, she'd only laughed and kissed his nose.

She'd already won.

And so he proposed a new game, a game where they build hydrogen rockets under the bedsheets and giggle over comets they'd never seen but would like to some day. On days like these, she would marvel just how far they've come from death and war and how far they traveled to reach love and games.

Then she remembered every toppled star and spilled galaxy, every battle cry and baby's wail, every sign that said keep out and every locked door that led them right to where they were: painting pictures in honey and words in beds that were not theirs. They had to make homes from heartbreak, or else River and the Doctor would never win another game again.


End file.
